Google girds for war

Google has spent the past year trying to dodge trustbusters who snared its archrival Microsoft.

The company has built an army of 22 lobbying firms, donated to political campaigns, hired a former GOP congresswoman, and brought in academics, trade groups, spin masters and others to counter complaints about Google’s business practices.

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The leading critic is Microsoft — which settled its long-running antitrust case with the U.S. government in 2001.

“As far as the two of them goes, it’s like the Hatfields and McCoys,” said one Hill staffer with ties to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “There’s so much he said, she said that goes on behind the scenes.”

At stake is the very future of the tech business. And Google is gearing up for what could be a Pyrrhic war — one not only against the policymakers and regulators who could tie up the company for years in antitrust litigation but also against foes such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and others that are trying to use Washington to tip the playing field against Mountain View in the marketplace.

Adding to Google’s urgency is a finding by European regulators on Monday that the tech giant may be using its dominance in search and advertising in a way that harms competitors. However, the European Commission offered the company a critical legal lifeline: Google can propose its own solutions to policymakers’ fears to possibly avoid a lengthy and costly antitrust war in Brussels.

The verdict in Washington is still pending. In the meantime, Google has formed its own political offensive line and has been adopting some of the same whisper-campaign tactics that Microsoft has long used against it.

“We take Washington seriously and we believe it’s important to do all we can to help policymakers understand our business,” a Google representative told POLITICO.

The company has assembled a growing stable of lobbyists, including powerhouses Gephardt Government Affairs and Podesta Group. Once a neophyte, it now outspends Microsoft in lobbying and has a well-funded political action committee as the 2012 election draws closer. In April, Google’s PAC recorded its biggest month in donations to campaigns.

Earlier this year, the company also brought in a well-connected Washington chief — former Rep. Susan Molinari, a GOP insider who’s backing Mitt Romney.

Google has recruited allies on the right and the left to champion its cause. Former Federal Trade Commission competition chief David Balto, once with the Center for American Progress, and conservative icon Robert Bork have written articles for the press defending Google. Bork noted that he serves as an “adviser” to the company when he wrote a recent op-ed in the Chicago Tribune targeting Google’s antitrust detractors.

Meanwhile, Google has funded a flurry of academic reports. Two published earlier this month — one by Hal Singer and Bob Litan, of Navigant Economics, and another by First Amendment legal expert Eugene Volokh — essentially argued in defense of the company’s current work. And a third published last week — this one written in part by Internet expert Marvin Ammori — faulted all of the market remedies proposed by Google’s competitors.